English

Noun

procedure division ‎(plural procedure divisions)

1. (computing) The part of a COBOL program containing all the instructions that the computer is to execute

   1971 Allen Kent, Harold Lancour, "Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science"

   The procedure division contains the imperative, arithmetic, conditional, and other statements that create and manipulate the data.

   1999 Gordon Bitter Davis, "The Blackwell encyclopedic dictionary of management information"

   The procedure division contains program logic to compute, manipulate data, and to iterate and branch through program execution.

   2003 Robert C. Seacord et al, "Modernizing legacy systems"

   In the following alternative formulation of the procedure division, the PERFORM statement is used to execute a sequence of paragraphs.

Usage notes

• The term is capitalized (as PROCEDURE DIVISION) in the COBOL source code.